Trustee's Report of No Distribution & What It Means For Your Case
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The Trustee's Report of No Distribution, or NDR, lets the court and all interested parties know that no money will be paid to creditors.
Written by Attorney Andrea Wimmer.
Updated March 29, 2022
The Trustee's Report of No Distribution, or NDR, lets the court and all interested parties know that no money will be paid to creditors. If a NDR is filed, the court will close the bankruptcy case shortly after the discharge has been entered.
Unfortunately, you can only find the NDR by reviewing your case docket. Upsolve users can view their case docket in their my.upsolve.org account. You can also view your docket on PACER.
The typical NDR beings like this:
I, TRUSTEE NAME, having been appointed trustee of the estate of the above-named debtor(s), report that I have neither received any property nor paid any money on account of this estate; that I have made a diligent inquiry into the financial affairs of the debtor(s) and the location of the property belonging to the estate; and that there is no property available for distribution from the estate over and above that exempted by law. Pursuant to Fed R Bank P 5009, I hereby certify that the estate of the above-named debtor(s) has been fully administered. I request that I be discharged from any further duties as trustee.
Then it provides some case-specific information from your schedules, like the amount of debt and value of assets. Sometimes the trustee files this report without "filling in the blanks" and it will show "$0 assets" or "$0 claims scheduled to be discharged" for example.
Keep in mind, this is just a report the trustee files and doesn't affect the discharge of your debts and doesn't even differentiate between dischargeable and non-dischargeable debts. So, don't panic if you see the trustee put a bunch of 00000s in your report. They probably had a reason. You'd know if something out of the ordinary was going on.
This report can be filed either before or after your discharge is entered.
If the trustee determines that you have nonexempt assets, they will not file a NDR. Instead, they'll file a notice to give creditors a deadline to file a proof of claim in your case. More on that here.
